Thursday, December 19, 2013

Season's greetings and free speech

Being
hurt and being offended are far from equivalent. In a democracy, individuals should
expect to be offended; experiencing offensive behavior by others is one cost of
freedom. I find Christian fundamentalism silly, inane, and theologically
reprehensible. When other people, especially those who know me, stereotype all Christians
– including me – as fundamentalists, I often find that I feel offended. I am
saddened that they think me silly, inane, perhaps even reprehensible.

However,
my offense is insufficient to warrant any effort to limit their freedom to form
and to express opinion.

Hurt,
which for this post, I define as sufficient injury to warrant limiting another
person's freedom requires crossing a significantly higher threshold than merely
offending. Hurt must harm more than feelings. Otherwise, civility would result
in a society in which nobody dared to express a contrary opinion; any dissent
would almost certainly offend someone's feelings and therefore be morally
wrong. (For a more extensive analysis of this subject, cf. Peter Berger, "Two
Modest Victories for Common Sense," The American Interest, December 11, 2013)

For
example, the Christmas season begins on December 25 (at least among those Christians
who observe Advent). Exchanging Christmas greetings with other Christians is
appropriate. Expressing other forms of greetings with non-Christians is more
appropriate, e.g., Happy Hanukkah to
Jews in years in which Hanukkah occurs near Christmas, Season's Greetings, or Happy
Holidays. I try to greet others as I would have them greet me, i.e., in a
way that respects that individual's beliefs and heritage; the greeting is not
an opportunity for me to push my belief. I have had the delightful experience
of wishing a rabbi Happy Hanukkah as
he was wishing me Merry Christmas,
causing us both to laugh.

I am
offended when people, particularly Christians, take umbrage at people refusing
to exchange Christmas greetings. In fact, that expectation suggests that Christmas
has become a secular rather than religious holiday in our highly secularized
culture. On those occasions, I recognize the sin of Christian hubris.

Conversely,
when people claim that the mere presence of Christian symbols – especially when
displayed on non-public land – is wrong because it harms non-Christians, I laugh
at the absurdity of their argument. Diversity enriches, never impoverishes.
Democracy that requires uniformity and homogeneity has lost its genuineness, which
comes only when people are free.

A
similar analysis applies to other words and speech acts, e.g., flag burning, cross
burning, and name-calling. Adults living in democratic societies should remember
that offensive speech acts prove that freedom is alive and well. Citizens of
such societies do well to cultivate moral courage and strength in children such
that by the time the child becomes an adult, the child shrugs off offensive
speech acts as the products of the small-minded and morally misshapen.

Children
obviously need to learn (and it may be painful) to cope with offensive speech
acts, first from other children, and then, as the child develops moral courage
and strength, from adults. Adults should be especially careful in speaking to
children; speech acts that may cause offense but not harm when spoken to
another adult may harm the child.